I wanted to do new things with dance, adapt it to the motion picture medium.

I never wanted to be a dancer. It's true! I wanted to be a shortstop for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It fit into my scheme of things for many reasons. At the time it was true that male dancers were looked down upon, and it was true that a lot of the male dancers were effeminate. But what I was really trying to do was develop something that would be American.

I didn't want to move or act like a rich man. I wanted to dance in a pair of jeans. I wanted to dance like the man in the streets.

If I played a tough kid on the street I couldn't go out there and get into fifth position. I had to dance like a tough kid on the street.

I miss the romance. I keep saying this over and over again, but dance follows music. And if the accent today is percussion and rhythm and loudness, then that is the way the dance numbers will be. But it is pretty hard on romance with seven guitars, three drums, and no melody instruments in the band.

My mother had gotten a job as a receptionist at a dancing school and had the idea that we should open our own dancing school; we did, and it prospered.